


Carry You There

by foryouandbits



Series: Tumblr Ficlets [12]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Drunk bitty, Ficlet, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-08 00:47:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10374021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foryouandbits/pseuds/foryouandbits
Summary: Jack carries a drunk Bitty up the stairs.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hi y'all - this is inspired by [this incredible fan art](http://fizzmouth.tumblr.com/post/129320534942/bits-stop). Please check it out and give the artist kudos!

Getting wasted in the backyard of the Haus seemed like a good idea at the time, and after six beers, Bitty agreed that it was definitely still a good idea. It was March and the boys were celebrating the end of the regular season and the beginning of playoffs – their first game wasn't until Friday, but it was Tuesday and getting Tuesday drunk made absolute sense. Truthfully, they had been celebrating the end of regular season and the beginning of playoffs for several days now, but this particular celebration included only the occupants of the Haus.

Well, not all the occupants of the Haus. Jack Zimmermann had an eight a.m. class and refused to participate in the Haus Backyard Bonfire Miller Lite Chug-A-Thon To Celebrate Making the Playoffs and Kicking Some NCAA Ass.

The celebration began before sundown while the weather was still tolerable. It'd been one of the warmer days in spring and Bitty had no qualms about shorts and a tank top while attending class and making dinner, but after beer number three the fire was roaring and the sun was sinking. Now after beer number six the sun was completely set and Bitty was cold. Not just chilly – he was shivering, quivering, and complaining cold.

"Bro, just get a sweater," said Holster once Bitty had complained a third time about the temperature of his bones while simultaneously digging his bare hand through a half-melted cooler of ice for his seventh beer. The grass was moving as if they were in the shoreline of the ocean, but it was just the backyard of the Haus and the waves were attributed to shitty lite beer rather than actual tides.

"Isn't it weird," said Bitty, finally clasping onto beer seven and opening it with his non-frozen hand, "that water just moves on its own? Nothing else just moves on its own. Except for alive things. Oh my goodness. IS THE OCEAN ALIVE?"

"Dude," said Ransom, "you know that shit is controlled by the moon."

"What?" Bitty asked, dropping his beer on the ground in surprise and losing a third of it to the earth. He picked it up and sipped the runoff from the can's lid.

"Yeah. The moon controls the tides because of its gravitational pull. Dude, how do you not know that?"

"Because I'm an American Studies major and my classes consist of food throughout the ages? Do you know what Americans uses as sustenance during the revolutionary war when Britain was withholding supplies? I DON'T THINK SO. And actually I don't know that either and it's on my midterm Thursday so if any of you figure it out, please tell yours truly here –"

"Yeah, but the moon," said Ransom.

"Fine," said Bitty and he took another sip of his beer in case it fell over again, "but then explain how the wind works?"

"Fuck, how DOES the wind work?" asked Shitty, who had been staring at the sky for the past twenty minutes from the grass. He wore a large black sweater over his underwear and not much else, but unlike Bitty, he seemed perfectly comfortable with the temperature of the silky grass and the light wind, which no one was ready to admit that they didn't understand. Bitty downed the rest of his beer, which seemed to be getting less and less shitty with each one, but when he stood up from the armchair he swayed dramatically and clasped close to Ransom in order to remain upright.

"Bro," said Ransom. "I think that's enough for you. You can't even stand."

"I can totally stand," said Bitty. He pushed off of Ransom's ridiculously beefy arm and realized too late that he's pushed too hard and was falling backward the other way. He landed with an OOF on top of Shitty. "Oh Lord, this grass is freezing. Shitty, how are you laying on this? Why aren't you all freezing?"

"Because you're the only person from the South?" Holster asked. "I mean Ransom is Canadian, so I don't know if it's possible for him to be cold –"

"I can get cold!" yelled Ransom.

"Bits," said Shitty and he carefully steadied Bitty on his feet again. "I think it's time for you to go to bed. Don't you have an early class too?"

"Psshh, like I'm going to class tomorrow," muttered Bitty. After Bitty was placed upright he started shivering, his knees knocking together and his hands on his shoulders in a poor attempt to clutch onto his own body warmth.

"Here," said Shitty and he removed his sweatshirt. He placed it over Bitty's head and it fell all the way down to the hem of Bitty's shorts. Bitty tucked his arms through the sleeves but found quickly he couldn't make it through the entire length. He scooped up the edges of the sweatshirt to his waist, concerned more about the illusion of nudity than the warmth the sweatshirt provided. There was no saving the sleeves, however, since each time he pushed them up they just fell over his hands again. "Now upstairs with you. Straight to bed."

"How DARE you call me straight?" Bitty asked with a very weak swing of his fist. Shitty steadied him when he missed and nearly fell again, then turned him by the shoulders to the back door.

"I'm sorry, brah. You know I mean gay to bed."

"Damn right," muttered Bitty. He stumbled forward and look back at the grass behind him, trying to figure out what tripped up his feet. He couldn't figure it out and continued to stumble the rest of the way into the Haus, through the kitchen, and to the stairs.

That's when he realized this was not a good idea.

\---

Jack felt guilty for saying no to the backyard bonfire, especially since Bitty had asked so politely and looked more than just his normal amount of timid when Jack declined, but none of the rest of the boys seemed to remember that midterms were still happening. He was disappointed in Ransom more than anyone else – he'd spent the past three days day drinking and avoiding schoolwork when he should have been in full Coral Reef mode. Jack had a two papers and two midterms just on Wednesday and Thursday, and he really needed to finish this history paper before he could go to sleep, and he was only on page seven of ten.

He worked until well after the sun set, his eyes continually flickering to the time, and had just started on the conclusion when he heard something from down the stairs. He stood and opened the bedroom door.

"Jack," he heard, Bitty's voice carrying up the stairs with all of the volume of a puppy barking for the first time. He groaned and attempted to shut the door, but then he heard it again, almost like a siren call growing closer and closer to his ship at sea.

"Jack."

"Jack!"

"JACK!"

"JAAAACCCCK–"

"WHAT?" he finally bellowed from the top of the stairs. Bitty stood at the bottom, flushed red with inebriation and wearing a sweater that swallowed him whole. He didn't seem to be wearing anything underneath it, which caused Jack's breath to hitch in his chest, but then Bitty tugged at the hem of the sweatshirt and revealed the red shorts he'd been wearing all day. Jack's eyes travelled over the expanse of Bitty's legs and realized he was missing one of his shoes.

"Bittle, what the hell?" Jack asked, and his feet carried him downstairs to the train wreck awaiting him on the first floor.

"Jack, ohmygod!" said Bitty, as if realizing for the first time Jack was there. He reached out his hands and placed them on Jack's arms for support. "Please help, there are so many stairs." Jack looked behind him at the fourteen steps and shook his head.

"Same amount of stairs as always, Bittle."

"Yeah but there are so many!"

"Where is your shoe?" Jack asked, which caused Bitty to look down. "How do you always manage to just lose one shoe?" Bitty looked very distressed at the fact that he'd lost a shoe, and the tremble in his lip broke right through a wall Jack didn't realize he'd put up. "All right," said Jack. He still didn't understand why he was agreeing to this, or why he'd conceded so easily to a very drunk sophomore who'd interrupted his essay and thus his timing for his entire evening, but Jack picked up Bitty underneath the seat of his shorts and allowed Bitty to wrap his arms and legs around Jack.

"Oh Lord, THANK YOU." Bitty rested his head on Jack's shoulder, one hand holding tightly to his phone through the fabric of the sweatshirt sleeve, the other dangling loosely at Jack's side. Bitty's thighs gripped his waist with an unexpected amount of power, and Jack readjusted Bitty in his arms as he headed up the stairs, trying hard not to think about how right it felt that Bitty was there.

Then he realized Bitty was rambling.

"And then Shitty gave me his sweatshirt and told me to go upstairs so I went to do just that but OH, LORD, JACK, there were so many stairs…" Jack had already finished climbing the stairs when Bitty started saying something about pie, and then chirping, and then fell completely silent.

"Bittle?" Jack asked. He glanced down at his shoulder and that was it. Bitty was asleep. His skin on his cheeks was solid red, his mouth was open and drooling already, but he looked incredibly peaceful and comfortable there, like he belonged right in Jack's arms. Jack determinedly look away. This wasn't the plan for his night and he really needed get back to his paper. He opened the door to Bitty's room and carried Bitty to the bed. The bed was made so Jack shifted Bitty carefully in his arms, afraid to disturb him, and pulled back the covers with his free hand. When he did he unearthed Senor Bunny, who brought a smile to Jack's face. Jack shifted Senor Bunny to the side and set Bitty down in his bed. Jack removed Bitty's other shoe, which was untied and loose, then pulled the covers over Bitty's body and gently tucked him in. As Jack did, Bitty turned over onto his front and sighed "Jack…"

Jack beamed.

Bitty's hair was in his eyes so Jack carefully smoothed it out of the way, revealing the expanse of Bitty's forehead. Jack's hand rested on Bitty's back and wondered if he could get away with a kiss to that forehead without waking him up when he realized he wanted to actually kiss Bitty's forehead, and that was not a thought he'd ever had before. Bitty had made him think many thoughts that he'd never had before, but this was definitely the strangest one of them all.

Jack jumped off the edge of the bed (when had he even sat down?) and darted out of Bitty's room, across the hallway, and into the safety of his own bedroom. He breathed hard, much too hard for a jog that consisted of only seven steps, and stared at his open computer on his desk. He shook his head and climbed into his bed instead; his paper would have to wait until the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> Stop by [my tumblr](http://foryouandbits.tumblr.com/) and say hi!


End file.
